Dec 20, 2022
This week Austin Technology Council's CEO sits down with the founder & CEO of data.world Brett Hurt and they discuss what startups need to grow, how the pandemic has impacted business, and so much more.
Brett Hurt is the CEO and co-founder of data.world, an
Austin-based Certified B Corporation and public benefit
corporation. data.world makes it easy for everyone—not just the
"data people"—to get clear, accurate, fast answers to any business
question. data.world's cloud-native data catalog maps its customers
siloed, distributed data to familiar and consistent business
concepts, creating a unified body of knowledge anyone can find,
understand, and use. data.world is also home to the world’s largest
collaborative open data community, including public COVID-19
datasets. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, data.world was honored on the
“Best for the World” list by B Lab that recognizes the top 10% of
all B Corps globally. And in 2020, data.world was named by the
Austin Business Journal as one of the top-three companies to work
for. Brett is also the co-owner of Hurt Family Investments (HFI),
alongside his wife, Debra. HFI are involved in 115 startups, 31 VC
funds, and multiple philanthropic endeavors.
Brett co-founded and led Bazaarvoice as CEO, through its IPO,
follow-on offering, and two acquisitions. Bazaarvoice became the
largest public SaaS (Software as a Service) business in social
commerce and was named by the WSJ as one of the top IPOs of 2012.
Brett also founded and led Coremetrics, which was rated the #1 Web
analytics solution by Forrester Research and, like Bazaarvoice,
expanded into a global company and leader. Coremetrics was acquired
by IBM in 2010 for around $300m.
In 2017, Brett was given the Best CEO Legacy Award by the Austin
Business Journal. He is a Henry Crown Fellow and Braddock Scholar
at the Aspen Institute. Brett began programming at age seven and
doing so on the Internet at age eighteen. He finished his book,
“The Entrepreneur’s Essentials”, in August 2019 (available at
databrett.medium.com for free).